Tim_Day 28-29 (Volcano)

Day 28
Yesterday we woke up early in the morning and headed for the volcano. I was a little excited but not really. I was expecting the volcano to be ok and for me to be a little upset that we had done so much to get here. Luckily that wasn´t the case the entire experince was amazing.

We geared up at the place we bought the tickets. They said they supplied the gear but I was thinking they gave us some old gloves or something. But we ended up getting really massive boots, gaters, heavy duty pants and jacket, a backpack, helmet and ice pick. I was thinking are we climbing Everest or something. Seemed like over kill on the gear. But we ended up needing every peice of gear.

We got to the base of the mountan by little bus. Then we got on the first chair lift. Taking the lift saved us an hour of hiking and well worth the money. We got off the lift and headed straight up the hill. The first few feet was across some icy snow and Ana was already starting to freak out. We had a minimum of 3 hours ahead of us and I was getting a little worried Ana would only make it a few feet up the trail and stop. Good thing she´s a vary couragious girl. She toughed it out all the way to the top of the hill. The trail was tough and very steep. I must say I was a little scared as well because I wasn´t sure I knew how to stop myself if I slipped using the ice axe. I had an idea but I didn´t know. I don´t have much experience on ice and snow and that was what worried me.

We finally made it to the top by following the snow steps made by the people in front of us. It was a total of 3,000 feet of climbing and we did it in 3 hours with only 2 stops! They pushed the shit ot of the group. Crazy guys. I couldn´t believe the pace they were holding. The group was strong and they just keep hiking. Ana was beat when we reached the top and instantly sat down with her breath lost. I could hear the volcano breathing and raoring just over the small hill in front of us. I asked Ana if she was ok and she waved me to go away. So I left her and ran like a little kid with a smile on my face to see something I´ve always wanted to experience in person - Red hot lava.

Sure enough when I looked over the roaring peek there it was the lava speawing up in the air. It took my breath away. My heart was pounding and the ground would shake a little right before a huge amount of lava would shoot out. I asked the guide if it´s always like that and he said it wasn´t usually this active. I sat there for about 15 minutes watching the power of the earth unfold infront of me. It was amazing.

I took a bunch of pictures and then remembered I left Ana back there. I was going to go get here and there she was right behind me afraid to walk to the edge to view the volcano. We watched the volcano for a while when all the sudden a huge chuck of the crust around the volcano collapased into the hole. The guide started yelling for everyone to run and get off the edge of the volcano. It was a little scary and we all started to run. Later he said that the large peice of rock can sometimes act like a cork on a bottle and build up pressure then explode. Because we were about as close as you ever would want to be to the hole I was more than glad to run away.

That event made me scared to even be on the top of that volcano. When the guide who climbs that same mountain 5-6 times a weeks is scared and running that makes me scared. We did get a chance to go one more time to the edge. By that time I was ready to run if someone farted to loud. But nothing did happen. In the end there is no real way you could run from that volcano. The lava and rocks would just take you down.

The experience on the volcano was amazing and I am so glad we traveled as far as we did to see it. Made all the hardships disappear. We started the hike or should I say slide down the mountain. I was a little worried about this as well since the one young guy I talked to before I did this said the climbing wasn´t bad it was the slidding down the mountain that scared him. So we took our first hill and it wasn´t too bad. I was going pretty fast and wasn´t able to stop myself that well with the ice axe. But after a few huge slides I was becoming an expert. Was good times. The slides ended up being the best part of the trip. By the end I was able to control myself pretty well with the ice axe and it was like we were slidding down the best snow slides in the world. There ended up being about 4-5 long slides to get down the mountain. Was so fun twords the end. One slide was so long my butt starting freezing and buring.

We made it about 95% of the way to the bottom of the hill on our butts sliding. I would say something like 2,500 ft of sliding. Was great. Ana looked like she was having fun most of the time. Little scared but doing great. Ana was very excited to see the bottom of the mountain. She said she needed a beer after all the stress. I must say the entire hike was filled with mental and physicall stress.

Later that evening we treated ourselfes to a good meal of beef and french fries and a beer. Was great and good talking with Ana about the trip and just joking around. We did our best to stay up till 10:00 that night so we could not have to wake up early in the morning. We could have easily fell asleep at around 6:00. Slept great.

Day 29
We haven´t done much today. Laying around. We moved into our new place and we like it much better. We need to figure out what to do to keep us busy. I think we plan on renting motercycles tomorrow and going to a near by lake. That should be fun. We´ll see.

Stay tuned.

t*